


Atoning

by Little_Firestar84



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, One Shot, Roy Harper gets a new identity, Roy Harper is Dick Greyson, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Firestar84/pseuds/Little_Firestar84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy Harper, Arsenal, The Arrow: in the eye of the world, they were all as good as dead. And yet he lived, and there were many things, many sins he had to atone for. And maybe, just maybe, he knew the way. Post s03e19.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atoning

Laila was good- or, if Roy has to be honest and precise, people at Argus were good;they not only had been able tofake his own death,but they had given him a new name- a whole new life. 

Only, he didn’t want it.

He was aware that there was no turning back; Roy Harper was dead, and with him, the Arrow too- for a while, at least. After all,the Arrow wasn’t just Oliver, as he had learnt while they friends was missingjust few months before: it was a simbol. They were, they all could be the Arrow, and sooner or later,someone (Oliver) would pick the mantle up and start all over again right from where he had stopped,only more carefully. 

But right now, as he walked the streets of Gotham City late at night, something crazier than walking down The Glades, that wasn’t what was troubling him.

Maybe he liked risking his own life.

Maybe he was a little bit suicidal. 

Or maybe… maybe it was that they should have never faked his death, his friends should have allowed him to stay in prison, no matter what, so that he could atone for his sins, for the murder of an innocent man, a cop who was just doing his job. 

He had killed a man- no matter if it was under the influence of the Mirakuru. 

He had done so and now he was walking. Free. 

With a new name. A brand new identity. An home and money and everything he could ever need. 

It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t fair. Not at all. 

And right now, he couldn’t even be himself- his real self, Arsenal- any longer. he couldn’t even fight crime with his red suite and bow and arrows any longer; for months it had been his only way to fight the resentment, the guilt, and now, he didn’t even have that any longer. 

And then… then, _it happened._

He wasn’t sure how exactly it happened; one moment he was walkingdown the alley, and the next, he was surrounded by, well… brutes- brutes with knives. 

He felt like rolling his eyes, as he remembered just few days before in prison, when almost the same scene had taken place; almost being the practical word, as these menweren’t as threatening as the ones he used to deal with. 

And besides, he had told himself his assailants in prisons: he doesn’t need the arrows- all he had to have was himself, his hands and his feet. 

Only…few seconds into the fight, in that few seconds when he pretends he is losing so that they would underestimate him hence lowering his guard, someone elsejoined him: it’s one of the bats who are rumored to be watching over Gotham; up until that moment, despite having been a sort of Urban legend himself, he ahd thought the bats to be a myth too, and yet, yet here she was right before him, a red-head girl dressed in purple and yellow Kevlar kicking the assess of the bad guys like she had done nothing else since she was born.

Batgirl- that’s the name he was looking for, he chuckled, enjoying far too much the fight. 

(That’s probably not what Layla meant when she told him to fly low, under the radar.)

He liked her- obviously, not in the same way he liked Thea,but in a “I like the way you rock your fighting skills” sort. 

Second-rate thugs against the two of them? Those poor bastards didn’t even lasted two minutes, and when they are done and dealt with,few on the ground unconscious, few tied, a couple run with their tails between their legs, he stood there, hands on his hips as shemade sure the cops knew what to look for and where. 

“Sweet. I liked it.” He could say she was flirting, and it was embarrassing. Sort of. Well, mostly, it was weird. 

“Uhm. I’m…” He took a big breath, loses a couple of heartbeats.Now he is going to do it- what he hasn’t done since he had walked out of Starling. “I’m Richard.”

Richard. It felt strange as the name rolled on the tip of his tongue. Almost alien. And yet, he better got used to it, as it was going to be reality – _his reality -_ until the end of his life.

“But I didn’t ask you.” She simply said,giggling a little as she ended the sentence, a bit like she was drunk- which she probably was, only not on alcohol but adrenaline.

He opened his mouth to say something else- he wasn’t even sure what – but before he could utter even just one word, she had gone back into the shadows she belonged to. 

He scratched the back of his head as he looked at the thugs on the pavement of the road. They had done it. and why was he surprised? It had been his life, just unti, a few days before, after all. 

And maybe… just maybe….

After all, Roy Harper… Arsenal… the Arrow… they all were dead. 

But _he_ was alive. _Him._

And maybe, just maybe… there still could be something Richard Grayson could do to atone for his past sins as Roy Harper. 


End file.
